


True Confessions

by executrix



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: AU, Gen, Pre-TWB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before The Way Back: a character we don't see in canon tells her side of the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Confessions

THEN  
_The ugly siren sounded, and Blake swam up to consciousness in his bunk on the London. He tried desperately to hold on to the last shreds of the dream.

Asleep, he saw Maite's face. Not at the age she was the last time he saw her (the last time he ever saw her), but at the age she would have to be now, six years old or so, her short light-brown hair sticking up all over, the gap between her front teeth prominent as she smiled and said, "Daddy, look at me!"

It should have been torture to think of her, to remember her, but it was sweet, a gift from the Universe that perhaps had forgiven him just a little bit.

Most of the time he didn't remember her. She had been nearly but not entirely wiped away. When he could catch hold of the memory, he thought that her eradication must have been important. Because if he'd remembered, he would have known that he couldn't have hurt children the way they said. Because either they had parents who loved them as fiercely as he loved Maite, or they damn well deserved to and needed his protection all the more.

BEFORE

1.  
I tapped at the keypad of the heater unit, lowering the heat to Keep Warm, but dinner was going to be dried out again. Maite had already had her tea, she sat at the kitchen table playing with a jigsaw puzzle. Soon it would be time to put her to bed. Another night she'd be asleep before her father was home, at that rate she'd forget him.

I thought I heard the scrape of his keycard in our unit's door, but it was just my imagination. I flicked through the fashion pages in Alpha Home Weekly (there was no point in learning new recipes for more dinners whose desiccated remains would be scraped into the disposer). For those who had the clothing coupons, the more feminine New Look still reigned. Everyone else could try to find a few yards of cloth to let out their austere wartime Utility dresses.

The mannequin in the lipstick ad mocked me, with her look of excited anticipation and her Cherries in the Snow mouth.

I finished the crossword puzzle and, rather guiltily, turned to the Quiz. All rubbish, of course, no real psychological insight, but it's harder to pass those silly things by than to stop eating potato crisps.

"Is YOUR Man Faithful?" the headline shrilled. "The wife is always the last to know!"

No, it couldn't be. I refused to believe it. Yes, he spent hardly any time at home. When his body was present, he often seemed miles away. No, we seldom made love any more--but then, there'd been that terrible argument we had. I wanted another Reproduction License. Doesn't, wouldn't any man want a son?

He said that Maite is lovely, a wonderful child, so bright and sweet, she should be enough for us, and anyway he wouldn't pay the bribes we'd have to splash about for a second License. And I said--oh, I know it was wrong, I could have bitten my tongue off afterwards--that he couldn't pay the bribes, not with what he earns in that backwater Aquitar Project.

It's not what I expected, when we were at Uni together. We all thought he'd be such a high flyer. All the girls in my dorm were so envious when we got engaged.

I flicked on the vizscreen. I half-watched Central Security-1 as I let down the hem on Maite's best dress. This is not what I was used to. When I was little, Mother didn't have to do menial tasks--one of the servants took care of it.

The vizplay was nonsense, of course. They have to simplify it for the Lower Grades. Everything wrapped up in forty-four minutes, to save time for the advertisements. Crisps. Fizzy drinks. Headache remedies. Yes, I do have rather a lot of headaches. Nearly everyone I know does. But it's not much credit to the CS-1 team when they catch rebels and spies and saboteurs. The actors who play the CS-1 agents are handsome or pretty and well-dressed, well-spoken and clean. The enemy look loathsome, scarcely human if indeed not aliens in disguise. In life, things are rather more nuanced.

I looked down at my engagement ring: made by an artisan, freshwater pearls in a setting of twisted vines. At the time, it had seemed so innovative. Anyway, both my sisters got big diamonds--if I was bound to lose, it was easier and more honorable not to compete.

At what point does innovation become deviance?

2.

Again, I picked the discarded clothing off the floor, checking to see if the collars had frayed to the point where buying replacements couldn't be delayed any further.

No, there was no lipstick on the collar. But there was a crumpled bit of paper in one of the pockets, with a date and a time and an address.

When he came home that night, he said that he was sorry to be late, but there was a routine back-up for the quarter, and the main server was running slow.

There was half a tram ticket in his trouser pocket, for the line that would have taken him to that address.

3.  
“How do you spell that?” said the man with the thin twisted face and the thatch of straw hair.

“P-a-r-t-h-e-n-i-a,” I told him. He keyboarded quickly, the tapping of his fingers nearly blurring into one sound.

"Thank you, Mrs. Blake," "I've had many reports from wives--about deviance, about treason, about rebellion--and I know exactly what's involved. What brings a wife here."

"I love the Federation, Colonel Tarrant," I said. "I can't stand by and let…."

"Quite," he said, staring at the display on his screen. "As for standing by…do you want to be there when we take him? Some wives do, you know."

"No!" I said. "Can I…can I get a travel pass? I'd like to take Maite--my little daughter, you know--to her grandparents' house…"

"Very well," he said. "Leave tomorrow. Don't come back for--well, three days should do. And don't worry--because you came to us voluntarily, just as a loyal citizen should, we won't take any reprisals against you or your family."

I must have gone pale; I'd never even thought about that.

"If the reeducation process is successful….well, some of my past clients say that they've never been so happy in their lives, now that their husband or wife, their parents, whatever, has returned to the fold as a loyal citizen."

"That's all I want," I said.

"I'll just bet it is," he said, with another of his horrible smiles.


End file.
